The Tibetan Book of the Dead — ed. W. Y. Evans-Wentz

As Dr. Evans-Wentz so concisely says, Death disincarnates the ‘soul-complex’, as Birth incarnates it. In other words, Death is itself only an initiation into another form of life than that of which it is the ending.

On the subject of the physical aspect of Death, the attention of the reader is drawn to the remarkable analysis here given of symptoms which precede it. These are stated because it is necessary for the dying man and his helpers to be prepared for the final and decisive moment when it comes.!_ Noteworthy, too, is the description of sounds heard as (to use Dr. Evans- Wentz’s language) ‘the psychic resultants of the disintegrating process called death’. They call to mind the humming, rolling, and crackling noises heard before and up to fifteen hours after death, which, recognized by Greunwaldi in 1618 and referred to by later writers, were in 1862 made the subject of special study by Dr. Collingues.

* Cf. Tantraraja, ch, xxv, vv. 83-100, dealing with signs of approaching death, Yantrik Texts, edited by Arthur Avalon, vol. xii.

CONSCIOUSNESS TRANSFERENCE xxix

But it is said that the chain of conscious states is not always broken by death, since there is Phowa, or power to project consciousness and enter the body of another.!' Indian occultism speaks of the same power of leaving one’s body (Svechchhotkranti), which, according to the 7antraraja (ch. XXVII, vv. 45-7, 72-80), is accomplished through the operation (Vayudharana) of the vital activity (or Vayu) in thirty-eight points, or junctions (arma), of the body. How, it may be asked, does this practice work in with the general doctrine or ‘reincarnation’? We should have been glad if Dr. Evans- Wentz had elucidated this point. On principle, it would seem that in the case of entry into an unborn body such entry may be made into the M/a¢rix in the same way as if it had occurred after a break of consciousness in death. But in the case of entry into beings already born the operation of the power or Siddhi would appear to be by the way of possession (Avesha) by one consciousness of the consciousness and body of another, differing from the more ordinary case by the fact that the possessing consciousness does not return to its body, which ex hypothcsz is about to die when the consciousness leaves it.

If transference of consciousness is effected, there is, of course,
no Lardo, which involves the break of consciousness by death.
Otherwise, the Text is read.

Then, as the breathing is about to cease, instruction is given and the arteries are pressed. This is done to keep the dying person conscious with a consciousness rightly directed. For the nature of the Death-consciousness determines the future state of the ‘soul-complex’, existence being the continuous transformation of one conscious state into another. Both in Catholic and Hindu ritual for the dying there is constant prayer and repetition of the sacred names.

For the nature of the Death-consciousness determines the future state of the ‘soul-complex’, existence being the continuous transformation of one conscious state into another. Both in Catholic and Hindu ritual for the dying there is constant prayer and repetition of the sacred names.

The pressing of the arteries regulates the path to be taken by the outgoing vital current (Pra@za). The proper path is that which passes through the brahmarandhra, or Foramen of Monro. This notion appears to have been widely held (to quote an instance) even in so remote and primitive a spot as San Cristoval in the Solomon Islands (see Threshold of the

1 Cf. Tantnk Texts, vol. vii, p. 23, the Buddhist Shrichakra-sambhara Tantra.

XxX FOREWORD

Pacific, by C. E. Fox). The function of a holed-stone in a Dolmen found there (reminiscent of the Dolmen @ dalle percée common in the Marne district of Western Europe, in South Russia, and in Southern India) is ‘to allow the free passage to its natural seat, the head, of the dead man’s adaro, or “ double” ’.

According to Hindu belief (see Pretakhanda of Garuda Purana) there are nine apertures of the body which are the means of experience, and which, in the divine aspect, are the Lords (Natha) or Gurus. A good exit is one which is above the navel. Of such exits the best is through the fissure on the top of the cranium called Brahmarandhra. This is above the physical cerebrum and the Yoga centre called ‘Lotus of the Thousand Petals’ (Sahasraéra Padma), wherein Spirit is most manifest, since it is the seat of Consciousness. Because of this, the orthodox Hindu wears a crest-lock (SAzkAd) at this spot; not, as some have absurdly supposed, so that he may thereby be gripped and taken to Heaven or Hell, but because the Shzkha is, as it were, a flag and its staff, raised before and in honour of the abode of the Supreme Lord, Who is Pure Consciousness itself. (The fancy-picture in a recent work by C. Lancelin, La Vie posthume, p. 96, does not show the aperture of exit, which is given in Plate 8 of the second edition of Arthur Avalon’s Serpent Power, p. 93.)

Whatever be the ground for the belief and practice of primitive peoples, according to Yoga doctrine, the head is the chief centre of consciousness, regulating other subordinate centres in the spinal column. By withdrawal of the vital current through the central or Swshumna ‘nerve’ (na@di), the lower parts of the body are devitalized, and there is vivid concentrated functioning at the cerebral centre.

Exotericism speaks of the ‘Book of Judgement’. This is an objective symbol of the ‘Book’ of Memory. The ‘reading’ of that ‘Book’ is the recalling to mind by the dying man of the whole of his past life on earth before he passes from it.”

1 Cf. A. Avalon’s Tanirik Texts, vol. viii, p. 2.

Exotericism speaks of the ‘Book of Judgement’. This is an objective symbol of the ‘Book’ of Memory. The ‘reading’ of that ‘Book’ is the recalling to mind by the dying man of the whole of his past life on earth before he passes from it.”

1 Cf. A. Avalon’s Tanirik Texts, vol. viii, p. 2.

* That such a review of earth-life is experienced by the dying has been frequently attested by persons who had begun to die, as, for example, in drowning, and then been resuscitated,—W, Y. E-W.

tos CLEAR SVIGHT OF THE VOID Xxxi

The vital current at length escapes from the place where it last functioned. In Yoga, thought and breathing being interdependent, exit through the Brahmarandhra connotes previous activity at the highest centre. Before such exit, and whilst self-consciousness lasts, the mental contents are supplied by the ritual, which is so designed as to secure a good death, and, therefore (later on), birth-consciousness.

At the moment of death the empiric consciousness, or consciousness of objects, is lost. There is what is popularly called a ‘swoon’, which is, however, the corollary of super-consciousness itself, or the Clear Light of the Void; for the swoon is in, and of, the Consciousness as knower of objects (Viana Skandha). This empiric consciousness disappears, unveiling Pure Consciousness, which is ever ready to be ‘discovered’ by those who have the will to seek and the power to find It.

That clear, colourless Light is a sense-symbol of the formless Void, ‘beyond the Light of Sun, Moon, and Fire’, to use the words of the Indian Gita. It is clear and colourless, but mayik (or ‘form’) bodies are coloured in various ways. For colour implies and denotes form. The Formless is colourless. The use of psycho-physical chromatism is common to the Hindu and Buddhist Zaztras, and may be found in some Islamic mystical systems also.

What then is this Void? It is not absolutely ‘nothingness’. It is the Alogical, to which no categories drawn from the world of name and form apply. But whatever may have been held by the Madhyamika Bauddha, a Vedantist would say that ‘ Being’, or ‘Is-ness’, is applicable even in the case of the Void, which is experienced as ‘is’ (astz). The Void is thus, in this view, the negation of all determinations, but not of ‘Is-ness’ as such, as has been supposed in accounts given of Buddhist ‘Nihilism’; but it is nothing known to finite experience in form, and, therefore, for those who have had no other experience, it is no-thing.

A description of Buddhist Mahayana teaching which is at once more succinct and clear than, to my knowledge, any other, is given in the Tibetan work, The Path of Good Wishes of Samanta Bhadra, which I have published in the seventh xxxii FOREWORD volume of Zantrik Texts (p. xxi et seg.) and here summarize and explain.